The invention relates to a fruit-harvesting machine comprising a motorised support structure and a harvesting assembly mounted on said structure by means of a suspension frame.
The invention is applied in particular to the mechanised harvesting of fruit growing on trees or bushes planted in rows, such as grapes, berries, coffee berries, olives and other fruit, in particular fruit growing in bunches.
Conventionally fruit is harvested by a harvesting assembly straddling at least one row of plants and being moved along said row. The harvesting assembly comprises a recovery system that is operable to convey the flow of harvested material inside the machine in order to, where appropriate after cleaning and/or sorting, to store it in at least one hopper provided for this purpose or in an associated trailer.
The harvesting assembly also comprises two shaker devices that are operable to detach the harvest from the plant stocks, said shaker devices delimiting transversely between them a harvesting space into which the stocks to be shaken successively are introduced to travel through said space between a front opening and a rear opening of said space.
In particular, the longitudinal dimension of the harvesting space is adapted to receive more than one, in particular two, plant stocks in said space in order to shake them over a distance greater than the spacing between the stocks in the row.
However, the harvesting space can then contain two stocks whose aggregate transverse dimension (the transverse separation between their outwardmost edges) is greater than the available transverse dimension of the harvesting space. The transverse dimension of the harvesting space is defined by the separation between the two shaker devices and the alignment of the stocks in a row is not perfect.
As a result each of the shaken stocks therefore exerts an opposite lateral force on the respective shaker device, which places a high mechanical load on said devices and makes shaking less efficient.